Stories From the Blue Moon Café

Following the success of Stories from the Blue Moon Café volumes I, II, and III, we are pleased to serve up another hearty helping of Southern writing in this fourth edition. Offering the best in contemporary Southern fiction, from a tale inspired by a sculpture to another written by a popular Nashville singer and songwriter, along with essays by Pulitzer Prize winners and poems by up-and-comers, Stories from the Blue Moon Café IV promises to satisfy everyone’s appetite. ABOUT THE EDITOR Sonny Brewer owns Over the Transom Bookstore in Fairhope, Alabama, and serves as board chairman of the Fairhope Center for the Writing Arts. He is the author of the novel The Poet of Tolstoy Park and the upcoming A Sound Like Thunder. Brewer believes his best writing is to come in his children’s book, Rembrandt the Rocker, forthcoming from MacAdam/Cage. FROM THE EDITOR I sat in the kitchen with writers Joe Formichella and Suzanne Hudson, at an old Formica-top table, eating Suze’s homemade spaghetti with salad on the side. Just down the hill on the banks of Fish River, bullfrogs were singing up a rain. We were talking about writers and books. Suze lit a cigarette. I pushed back my plate. Joe poured me a glass of red wine. They always say that a writer should never give up his or her day job, that 5 percent of published authors actually make a living from writing. “It’s not about the money,” Suzanne said. “No kidding,” I said. We got quiet and could hear the frogs like they were on the counter by the breadbox. We agreed it’s not easy to write. To conjure with words well-chosen a life that stands up on a page and slaps the hell out of you. And yet. Sometimes an alchemical transformation of lead into gold occurs. That’s the joy of putting together this anthology, Stories from the Blue Moon Café; to go panning for gold knee-deep in the inky sluice and come up with something that shines. Bright. Words that promise to stay with you a lot longer than money.